Grubhub faces PR blowback after CEO’s anti-Trump email
After seeming to ask pro-Trump employees to resign, Matt Maloney walks back his ‘misconstrued’ statement. Are there lessons for consumer brands in contentious times?
Elections end in jubilation for the victors, despair for those who fall short.
Yet however passionate the emotions, it’s risky for a customer-facing business to take sides in political fisticuffs—even internally.
Grubhub, an online and mobile food ordering company, learned that lesson this week as it scrambled to contain the PR damage caused when its chief executive sent a companywide email that seemed to ask employees to resign if they supported President-elect Donald Trump.
As conservatives vowed to boycott Grubhub, CEO Matt Maloney followed up Thursday by stating that others had misconstrued a message of “inclusion and tolerance in the workplace.”
“I want to clarify that I did not ask for anyone to resign if they voted for Trump,” Maloney wrote. “I would never make such a demand.”
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